« ‘Z’ means Russian war crimes, bombed-out cities, thousands of murdered Ukrainians, » said Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Twitter.
Ukraine is asking all countries to criminalize the use of « Z » as a symbol to publicly support the Russian invasion of its neighbor. In a tweet shared on Tuesday, Ukraine’s minister of foreign affairs Dmytro Kuleba wrote: « I call on all states to criminalize the use of the ‘Z’ symbol as a way to publicly support Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. » « ‘Z’ means Russian war crimes, bombed out cities, thousands of murdered Ukrainians. Public support of this barbarism must be forbidden, » Kuleba said. The symbol « Z »—together with the letter « V »—was first noticed as a marking on Russian military vehicles in the first days of Moscow’s troops invasion of Ukraine. The letters on the tanks and vehicles which on February 24 entered Ukraine were assumed to be markers for Russian troops to identify their force contingents, but their meaning has never been confirmed. In a series of tweets between March 2 and 4, Russia’s Defense Ministry shared the symbol Z as standing « for Victory, » « for the truth, » « for peace, » and as part of the words « denazification » and « demilitarization.
